Radical Theology [Paperback]

Don Cupitt (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: October 6, 2006

According to Don Cupitt, radical theology is a personal struggle for a new and better kind of religion following the loss of the older sort of popular, traditional, ecclesiastical faith. It is, he says, inevitably, highly autobiographical. This set of eighteen unpublished or little known published essays which document his gradual radicalization over the last thirty years open a window onto the progression of his thought and demonstrate his long held desire to come up with a message that can reach and influence ordinary people. Because, in Cupitt s judgment, the real radical theology is your own voice, if you can but find it.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Don Cupitt is a Life Fellow and former Dean of Emmanuel College, Cambridge, England, and the author of more than thirty books. A frequent broadcaster, mainly for the BBC, he has made three TV Series, one of which, The Sea of Faith, gave rise to a book and to an international network of radical Christians which is still growing.

Product Details

• Paperback: 145 pages
• Publisher: Polebridge Press (October 6, 2006)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0944344976
• ISBN-13: 978-0944344972
• Product Dimensions: 8.9 x 6.4 x 0.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,874,334 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

11 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Finally, a mature approach to Christianity for our day, June 6, 2007

By 

B. Braun (San Francisco) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Radical Theology (Paperback)

This collection spans several decades, and thus spans Don Cupitt's transition from adventurous Anglican theologian to radical theologian, radical meaning that he has given up all supernatural ideas, including that of a god in any realistic sense. Many of the essays are very deep, and grapple headlong with the philosophical knowledge that has come our way since the enlightenment, and on into the recent post-modernist currents. His style is slightly similar to that of Jung, with similar flashes of extremely profound insight.

It is extremely refreshing to hear a leading figure of a major establishment faith think and change through contact with modern rational ideas, and grow to recognize that supernaturalism is a thing of the past- a relic of our collective cultural infancy.

Cupitt is still devotedly Christian, taking the story of Christ and the traditions of the church as highly valuable. But that does not mean that one has to believe in the divinity of Christ, let alone cower before a mean and vengeful god. What it means is that Christ can be seen as he more truly was- an almost Nietzschean aphorist and rabbi who wanted not to create new idols (let alone sadomasochistic ones) on the altar, but to revolutionize people's thinking away from commanded and law-given morals and towards conscience-driven and faith inspired morals.

In the end, the prospect of mature faith in humanity, in the voice that is found, after much work, within one's self, assisted by the artistry of deep religious traditions and images, is both freeing and bracing. It is high time to fully comprehend that god is made in the image of man, and that this is not at all a bad thing.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Christian Theology for the 21st Century, July 7, 2008

By 

Ross Mackenzie (Virginia, USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Radical Theology (Paperback)

For over thirty years Don Cupitt has been provoking people like me to think. This one again did the same, and make me grateful to have someone point me in what I think is the right direction for a Christian theology to move in the 21st century.